


Scout’ll Turn Up on His Own

by PreludeInZ



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Baseball, Comic AU, F/M, Fluff, take me out the ball game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:50:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2676212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>A quick Comic-AU Drabble, because <a href="http://1fort-2fort-redfort-blufort.tumblr.com/post/103459007735/teafortteu-yourunderwaterskies">this post </a>got me thinking.</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <em>-----</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Scout’ll Turn Up on His Own

Except Scout  _hadn’t_  turned up on his own. She had Demo and Soldier, Pyro and Spy. Engie and Medic were still in the wind, and Heavy and Sniper would require leaving the country. Scout was still stateside, probably close to home. It wasn’t in his nature to vanish overseas, regardless of whatever rumours got spread about his parentage. On that note, she’d been lucky to find Spy, imprisoned in Teufort, some complicated frame job relating to Tom Jones and a bank vault. It took Miss Pauling a week to find out where Scout had gone. Scout had been…well. Scouted.

It was a minor league team in New Jersey. Suitably, Miss Pauling thought, they were called the Jackals. He played shortstop. Apparently he hadn’t considered himself good enough yet to go for a team anywhere nearer to Boston, but he’d been at it for six months, and still drove up to see his family on weekends. Miss Pauling thought that was adorable, and that it was a shame to take him away from it. But she was rounding up  _her_  team, and she needed him.

But, it was Scout. And it was baseball. So he would need convincing. She could have sent Demo and Spy, and hoped diplomacy would win him over. But, Scout. So she bought a plane ticket, and went out herself. Cheaper, anyway.

Miss Pauling bought a pair of jeans, cut them into the tiniest shorts she still felt respectable in (so, about knee length, in her case). She bought a Red Sox Jersey, red on white.She bought a cap. Not her colours. She bought posterboard, she bought bright, neon paint. Glitter. She worked very deliberately in her hotel room. The next morning, she packed up her sign, and went to a game.

Miss Pauling didn’t really care for baseball, but in spite of his loud mouth and his constant need for attention, there was a reason Scout loved it. He was  _good_ at it. He outshone everyone else on his team, was funny and supportive and a crowd favourite. He was a joy to watch, and Miss Pauling had already spent six years watching him run all over a dusty field, chasing balls and shouting at people. She found herself wishing she could spend another six watching him do this. Maybe when this was all over, she would find out if the Jackals needed a manager.

She waited until the seventh inning. She waited until the score was tied. She waited until he was next up to bat, warming up and tapping his cleats just outside the dugout. He hadn’t seen her, hadn’t really looked at the bleachers, mind on the game, like it had never used to be on work. Baseball just seemed to lend itself really well to the narrative.

Miss Pauling had made her way to the front of the surprisingly crowded bleachers. It was a beautiful day. She tilted her cap up out of her eyes, leaned over the low fence at  the edge of the field. Holding her sign up, she half-called, half-sang, “Hee-eeyy, batter batter!”

She knew just enough about baseball and just enough about Scout to know this would get his attention immediately. He turned, spotted her. Stared. Gaped, in fact. Miss Pauling smiled back, stretched up onto her toes, held up her sign a little higher:

_8 out of 9 on my team. Come be MY shortstop._

By now the crowd had realized that something was up. Necks were craning. Several cameras had swiveled in her direction, local news. Papers. Oh god. She hoped this wasn’t about to go badly wrong on her.

Scout saved the day, lighting up with a grin. He poked a finger at his chest, tilted his head inquisitively. His grin widened when she nodded.

The umpire seemed not to have noticed. He seemed to think the game needed finishing. Scout tugged his helmet off, tossed his bat on the ground, and disagreed. He made a beeline for her, vaulted the waist high fence. Stood near enough that none of the crowd could quite hear their whispered conversation. “Team gettin’ back together?”

"I’m working on it. I do need you." She lowered her sign and looked around, pretending that a few hundred people weren’t watching. "I know you love this, I’m sorry to ask you to leave."

His smile faded, just a touch. And, a little melancholy, “Yeah. Well, wanted to see how far I could get. One thing you could do, though. Make it up to me…hell. Make it up to my  _team_ , they are gonna be sorry to see me go. Call it a signin’ bonus? No fine print, just a one time thing, I swear.”

"Oh?"

He leaned in, whispered in her ear. She rolled her eyes, sighed and nodded. Smiled, though. Convincingly.

Scout pulled the hat off her head, swept an arm under her lower back, and kissed her as befitted the narrative. She wasn’t sure if the rush of blood was from the sudden change in gravity as he dipped her backward, or if she should just drop everything and see if the Jackals needed even just a water girl. The roar in her ears had been the stadium erupting into applause, more noise than she thought just a couple hundred people could make.

She was appropriately shy and demure as he took her by the hand and led her out of the stadium, to thunderous, but fading applause. He explained, nonchalantly, on the way. “Told ‘em all I was tryna get to the majors. Impress a girl I used to know. They did a thing about it in the paper, even, when I got signed. S’thing ‘bout baseball. Ain’t so much the game, s’much as the stories. People  _love_ a good ol’ fashioned underdog story.”

Miss Pauling almost didn’t notice she’d let him hold her hand all the way back to the rental car.


End file.
